KILLEEN, Texas – Mark Hominick (20-8 MMA, 3-0 UFC) knew exactly what was on the line when he stepped into the cage at Saturday night’s UFC Fight Night 23 event.

UFC president Dana White had made it abundantly clear that a Hominick win over friend and training partner George Roop at the Spike TV-broadcast event meant an April shot at UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo.

Hominick needed just 88 seconds to book his title fight.

“This is huge, but the thing with me, I’ve been fighting professionally for 10 years,” Hominick said following the win. “I’ve gone through the bottom, and now I’ve got a chance to go against the top – the best of the best. Those are the guys I’ve always wanted to face.”

Hominick swarmed from the opening bell and dropped Roop early. Roop proved game in returning to his feet but never really seemed to recover from the first flash knockdown.

After an unsuccessful Roop takedown attempt, Hominick unleashed a furious flurry that saw his opponent hit the deck again, and the fight was waved off at the 1:28 mark of round one.

Referee Don Turnage was a little slow to get in, and Roop actually had recovered slightly as he tried to kick Hominick away. However, when Roop finally rose to his feet to congratulate his opponent after the stoppage, he stumbled forward, and it was obvious Turnage had correctly called the finish.

Hominick also believed the stoppage was just.

“[Roop] was looking at both sides of the crowd,” Hominick said. “He was out on his feet after the first time I knocked him down. He was fighting on instinct.

“He’s a friend of mine. I dropped him, and the fight was over. There’s no need to go in there and give him any more damage than he has to take. He was done. The ref said he was finished, and that was the end of the fight.”

Hominick now has won five consecutive fights, and four of the wins came via stoppage. It’s a far cry from the 2-3 stretch Hominick endured during a 13-month period from 2007 to 2008. But “The Machine” insists his techniques aren’t the difference. Instead, he believes a refined mental approach is responsible for his current success.

“It’s never been training,” Hominick told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “I’ve always trained hard, and I’m improving everywhere. I think it’s the mental state. When I kind of had that rough patch of win, loss, win, loss, I was going into the fight so concerned about what my opponent was doing and what they were going to do to me as opposed to what I was going to do to them.

“If I was fighting a strong jiu-jitsu guy, I was going in there thinking, ‘I don’t want to go to the ground with this guy because he’s got great submissions,’ as opposed to, ‘OK, I’m going to defend his takedowns, and I’m going to punch him and knock him out. That’s the type of mentality I’ve had going in now. That’s five in a row now. I haven’t lost for two-and-a-half years. That’s what’s changed – my mental state going into the fight. I’m more confident in what I can do and what I’m capable of.”

Hominick will need to summon every ounce of confidence when he faces Aldo, who widely is considered one of the best five fighters on the planet. But with the bout tentatively scheduled as the co-feature of April’s UFC 129 event, which takes place in Hominick’s home province of Ontario, Canada, the Team Tompkins product likes his chances.

And with a pair of octagon wins from 2006 already under his belt, Hominick insists he won’t be affected by fighting on the biggest of big stages.

“This is the dream of every fighter – to fight for the title and to fight in front of your home province,” Hominick said. “All of those things are on my mind, and I feel that’s where I have my best performances.

“I fought in the UFC in 2006. I went up and fought a new weight class. Now I’m 3-0 in the UFC, so those are the kind of fights I perform best in. I perform in the spotlight. Being semi-main event, co-headlining and fighting for the title, that’s where I’m going to perform.”

After closing out his WEC run a perfect 8-0, Aldo carries an 11-fight win streak into the championship fight. And while Aldo makes his UFC debut in the contest, he unquestionably will be tagged a heavy favorite.

However, Hominick believes he’s prepared to expose the holes in Aldo’s game – openings that have thus far gone unseen.

“Nothing against Jose Aldo,” Hominick said. “I think he’s the best pound-for-pound fighter, fantastic striker. But he’s never faced anybody with my striking capability. We’ll see how he does against it.

“He’s been making wrestlers look like poor strikers, and a lot of times, that’s not too hard. He’s not going to do that to me, and I’m going in there with that kind of confidence. I know he’s the best in the world, but he’s never faced anybody like me.”

As the UFC 189 tour made its last stop in Dublin, featherweight champ Jose Aldo was met with a torrent of abuse from the Irish fans. It might have been unpleasant, but it might also have been just what he needed.